Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Mad March Chutney Tea Party

I will be once again sharing my Magpies at the Mad March Chutney Tea Party. These are my empty medieval style pie crusts (or coffins as they were known). As in the nursery rhyme 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' when the pie was filled with live blackbirds. My "Mag Pies" won't be filled with birds but with secrets of magpies.

The Magpie if a much maligned bird, as the BBC webpage on birds puts it Magpies are so despised in the UK that they "would probably have an Asbo slapped on them if they were teenagers."

However they are the most intelligent of birds and only seem to have this bad reputation in the UK, as in the rest of the world the magpie is often a symbol of good fortune.

Alice: “ I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

(Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

“Nature will come through the claws, and the hound will follow the hare”

(proverb, anaon)

The Chutney Preserves invite you to a Mad March Chutney Tea Party at the Hundred Year Gallery. Join us around the tea table to celebrate mad un-bounded spring energy as it rises up from the soil below the city streets. The Hundred Years Gallery Café will be open for tea and cakes and you may bring these to the Chutney tea-table to consume in sacrifice to the Chutney gods. The Chutney Preserves will be offering you their usual fare of joyous double dealing performances and you may watch or join in as the fancy takes you.

The Chutney Preserves is a multifaceted, interactive live art event, which draws on the spirit of celebratory public assembly dating back to prehistory. Appearing in the guise of a fete, country fair or rarey sideshow, and in this instance a tea party, it is an ‘organic’ public art work, presenting the public with a humorous and thought provoking display of temporary art works, interactive activities and marionettes.’

Initiated in 2005, artists’ collective Chutney Preserves have worked with over 100 artists and participated in six festivals and events including: Supernormal in Oxfordshire, Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park and Camberwell Arts Festival on Camberwell Green.